Jewish Literary Links for Shabbat
Every Friday morning My Machberet presents an assortment of Jewish-interest links, primarily of the literary variety.
Shabbat shalom.
Job Opportunity with New Voices magazine/Jewish Student Press Service
This just noticed:
Seeking recent college grad for full-time position: Editor in Chief of New Voices Magazine (newvoices.org) and Executive Director of Jewish Student Press Service.
New Voices Magazine and the Jewish Student Press Service (JSPS) have a full-time job opening for the Editor in Chief of an online magazine and Executive Director of the small nonprofit that publishes it. The start date is September 2013.
New Voices (est. 1991) is a national, independent magazine written by and for Jewish college students. Now a web-based publication, New Voices is published by the nonprofit Jewish Student Press Service, which was originally established in 1970 by a group of student activists to connect Jewish campus newspapers across the country.
New Voices covers Jewish issues from a student perspective, and has traditionally been progressive and pluralistic. New Voices and JSPS have launched the careers of countless journalists now working in both Jewish and mainstream media.
The salary is $32,000 per year and the position includes health benefits.
Full description available on JournalismJobs.com.
Wednesday’s Work-in-Progress: Three Down, One to Go
A few months ago, I wrote here about a series of linked essays that I’d been working on. Each essay in the sequence treats an element of an assault that took place in early 2009. The opening piece, “Sunday in the City,” was published in carte blanche last fall. In March, another essay appeared in Brevity.
Last week, “At the Station House,” which I see as closing out the sequence (at least for now), was published in the Summer 2013 issue of Contrary. This means that just one essay remains unpublished. Although it will be the fourth one in the sequence to meet readers, I think of it as “essay #2,” because chronologically (in terms of its own setting in time and place), it belongs between the carte blanche and Brevity pieces.
I can’t tell you the title of that last-to-be-published essay, because when I reviewed the proof for it a few weeks ago, I saw that the editor had written “TK” in the headline slot. We’ll see what happens there, and I’ll be sure to keep you posted.
Meantime, it’s a little strange to be nearing the end of my writing and publishing journey with this sequence. (There is one more idea that I’m playing with, for a possible fifth essay, but I haven’t managed to do anything with it yet–not even the beginnings of a draft–so I just may have reached the end of this particular road.)
I’m immensely grateful to all of the editors who have given these essays such wonderful homes, and to all of the readers who have responded to the writings so warmly. I never saw myself as much of a memoirist, but these deeply personal essays took my writing practice in a different direction, and it’s gratifying to have the opportunity to share them.
From East Europe to the East Bay: 100 Years After Emigration, a Bar Mitzvah in Berkeley
I’ve spent so much time writing about my paternal family history–particularly the refugee histories of my dad’s parents–that it sometimes seems as though my mom’s side doesn’t get very much attention. But appearances can be deceiving–just because I haven’t written quite so much about my maternal ancestors doesn’t mean that I don’t think about them. This past week, in fact, I’ve been thinking about them quite a lot. And that’s because I’ve just returned from several days in Berkeley, Calif., a trip occasioned by the Bar Mitzvah of my eldest cousin’s elder child.
My dad is an only child, and my mom is one of two siblings. My sister and I have three first cousins. Gathered together for the Bar Mitzvah, I found myself thinking again about our common past and the significance of our gathering in Berkeley for A’s Bar Mitzvah. I realized (and confirmed via the Ellis Island/Port of New York records) that it was 100 years ago–during the summer of 1913–that our grandmother’s father Jacob had left Eastern Europe to immigrate to the U.S. He left behind his wife (Yettie, after whom I am named), my then-infant grandmother, and two more children (twin daughters, then in utero).
Theirs was not an unusual story. (more…)
Upcoming Seminar on Teaching Holocaust Literature; Applications due October 21
The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum has issued a call for applications for participation in the 2014 Jack and Anita Hess Faculty Seminar, “Holocaust Literature: Teaching Fiction and Poetry,” which will run January 3-8, 2014.
The Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies announces the 2014 Jack and Anita Hess Faculty Seminar. This year’s Hess Seminar is designed for professors who are teaching or preparing to teach English, Jewish studies, modern languages, literature, or other courses that have a Holocaust-related literature component. Sessions will focus on imaginative responses to the Holocaust created by a variety of writers, from those writing during the Holocaust to survivors to second generation authors to those without an explicit family connection to this event.
The seminar will be co-led by Anita Norich, from the Department of English Language and Literature and the Frankel Center for Judaic Studies at University of Michigan, and Erin McGlothlin, from the Departments of Germanic Languages and Literatures and of Jewish, Islamic and Near Eastern Languages and Cultures at Washington University in St. Louis.
Applications are due on October 21, 2013. For application guidelines, please visit the museum’s website.